Microstructural evolution of WC-Co alloys

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:6958721

Strauss, J T

The microstructural development and grain-coarsening behavior of WC-Co alloys, with and without a VC additive, were investigated. The primary goal was to determine the mechanism through which VC acts as a grain-growth inhibitor. The study involved long-time sintering experiments (1 to 100 hours) on fully dense material, nascent stage sintering (90 to 1,320 seconds) starting with the green compact, and surrogate liquid phase experiments to characterize the WC powder prior to sintering. Quantitative microstructural analysis using intercept length distributions was performed for the long-term sintering. The nascent stage experiments involved the measurement of the specific surface area (S{sub v}) of each type of interface separately allowing the determination of the contribution of each developing entity to the overall microstructural evolution. The VC addition has been found to enhance the breakup of multigrained particles in the earliest stages of sintering, producing a reduced WC grain size. Further coarsening and microstructural development was found to be insensitive to the presence of the VC addition.

• Research Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)
• OSTI ID: 6958721
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360601 -- Other Materials-- Preparation & Manufacture
360602* -- Other Materials-- Structure & Phase Studies
ALLOYS
CARBIDES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
COBALT ALLOYS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
FABRICATION
GRAIN GROWTH
INHIBITION
MICROSTRUCTURE
REFRACTORY METAL COMPOUNDS
SINTERING
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
TUNGSTEN CARBIDES
TUNGSTEN COMPOUNDS
VANADIUM CARBIDES
VANADIUM COMPOUNDS